Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Toolcraft logo'd 5.56 Nickel Boron BCG with Carpenter 158 Bolt

And it’s not necessarily who makes them but at what spec or price point they are made.

Interesting point TWR, this $99 BCG then probably is not the same tolerance as a $200 DD!

Maybe, maybe not.

Just because it costs more doesn’t mean it’s better either.

Read the specs. On this particular BCG, it’s a good deal, I have two of them.

How sure are you that DD BCG isn't a Tool Craft?

that is a good point.

I don't think TC makes carriers (they do not make the bolts) to different tolerances.

PSA buys in mass volumes so they will get preferential pricing from TC in all probability; TC is a high volume producer.

DD does make a lot of their own parts, but not sure about the bolt carriers or the bolts, so it's not out of the question that a carrier from DD could be one produced by TC.

MM

I get their emails and it’s cost me a bit! Hard to pass on things like $129 complete lowers! Considering buying some extras for ARs like my cheap 350 Legend to better their quality.

It's a daily deal, but this is probably an even better BCG for the same money.

https://palmettostatearmory.com/pal...m-full-auto-bolt-carrier-group-8779.html

HPT and chrome lined.

No AR guru here, but my understanding is that the traditional phosphate, chrome lined carriers are better than Nickle Boron.

I have both, the nickle seems "nicer", but supposedly the millspec is better.

I prefer phosphate coated.

How is the phosphate carrier better? What makes it better?

Not arguing either way, just wondering what the basis for one being better than the other is.

MM

I've never heard that, if anything, what I've heard is the exact opposite, that phosphate is the worst of the coating and it only remains mil-spec because the military is slow to change.

Phosphate holds oil but nickel boron is slicker.

I remember when chromed bolts were being touted as better but the chrome embrittlement became a problem so everyone went back to mil spec.

Maybe that is where the thoughts are coming from?

I don’t know either way as my first choice is old Colt but I’m giving two of these a go and really liking the NB coating.

My understanding is NB is prone to flaking.
Phosphate won’t, and the chrome inside is tougher.
No personal experience, just videos.
School of the American rifle and Sons of Liberty seem like they aren’t full of BS. Appear solid.

Well, here's my take.

Manganese phosphate is a crystalline structure conversion coating for cast iron & steel; it offers no addition to the base material for any kind of wear resistance, & next to no corrosion resistance & I deal with it commercially, as with various other high tech coatings.

It does carry & hold oil to a better degree than any of more dense coatings like NIB, Cr, PVD, DLC & Black Nitride..................but all those coating offer various degrees of pretty high coefficient of friction reductions. Phosphate offers none & actually increases COF.

They work just fine though, & the chrome bore where the gas rings ride is a robust solution. My biggest complaint, by far, is that cleaning the bolt stem is a royal bitch compared to the other coatings discussed above.

IME with various phosphated BCG's, BCM makes the smoothest, most nicely phosphated surface that I've seen & all their stuff is high quality, IMO.

Current technology for NiB coatings as well as all the others mentioned above have all developed to a point that any flaking or cracking being a rare occurrence, as far as I know, from personal use & seeing others use them & being on several forums like this that discuss these things, ad nausem.

I have 3 chromed BCG's, one with a chromed bolt, 1 with a phosphate bolt & 1 with a PVD coated bolt...................all have held up just fine. That KAC offers an upgraded carrier that they terms the Krud Kutter, says a lot.

But PVD / DLC is by far the slickest, smoothest coating I've seen & there is a very apparent & noticeable difference in the smoothness & feel of manually running the carrier back & forth in the upper via the charging handle. The next smoothest is a plain, uncoated, polished SS carrier from JP Rifles...............is's smoothness has to be felt to be appreciated.

But if I could always get a DLC coated BCG, when I want it, at a reasonable price & in a design that I like, I would never use anything else.

And then there is Black Nitride & when done right, as are those from RCA, it is very slick & smooth as well with excellent wear resistance.

All these coatings wear far better than phosphate, with NiB at the low end & with the most visible wear at about the same round counts that the others still show no sights of wear.

As to the bolts themselves, MIL-SPEC is Carpenter 158 steel with phosphate coating.

There are plenty of other commercial bolts made from 9310 & lots of claims of it being superior to C-158, especially for breakage.

And that maybe true.............for the very best & correctly HT'd 9310.

But C-158 is proprietary & not nearly as readily available, & from the limited number of sources that it is available from, everything that I can find, says that it is far better controlled & held to consistent QA standards.

9310, by contrast, is available everywhere, & it's inevitable that given the many sources for the product & the variety of the HT sources, that there is much more variability that will creep through than with the more rigidly controlled C-158.

So if I buy a 9310 bolt, I will only buy from a fairly high end & highly recognized source & hope they have done their homework, but I really prefer to buy C-158, regardless of the coating.

Also on bolt design, if you really want added strength against breakage, HMB defense makes a bolt design with a blind cam pin hole with greatly strengthens the bolt at its weakest point. Young Mfg. was making bolts to that design as well, but seems to not being doing so anymore.

The 2 best bolts that I've used are a Young / HMB design, Cr plated, & PVD coated bolts from JP Rifles. Both are 9310, both have performed well & held up well.

Pay your money & make your choice, no shortage of stuff to choose from, from super budget, to outrageous.

MM

Great info. I'm glad you mentioned a few of the ones I have. The RCA's I have are very smooth, and wearing well. That black nitride coating is slick and tough!! One on a Noveske, and the other a different build. Both BCG's holding up very well, and looking almost like new, even though they may have a few thousand rounds on them. I also like how TWR keeps bringing up the NIB on the BCG in question. If he says it's good, I'd buy one. I like that coating, when it's done right. And trust me, I've seen some that were not.

I have a BCG from RTBA, of all places that is NIB, and it still looks like new. I think I have almost 10,000 rounds on that BCG as of right now. Love the NIB on that one. They advertise it as "UCT'S EXO NIB coating". The same process WMD uses. Like TWR said, just wipe it off with a rag, and it's good. I generally clean it with Rem oil, and call it good though.

One BCG I bought a couple years ago was a huge disappointment and was NIB coated. That was a Fail Zero, and it was a total POS. So, guys saying that coating is not good, or it "flakes off", may have had a bad experience from a sub par BCG manufacture, like Fail Zero.

Gotta love the Campfire.

0 sarcasm!

bsa,

You're not the 1st that I know of with a Fail Zero that has had problems................

Seems to be a brand that might be less than robust, but I have no direct experience with any of their BCG's.

MM

For the bargain hunters, Arm or Ally is a good source for a limited range of suppliers, & are big on Toolcraft & Aero.

MM

Being new to the AR back then, and even now, I just figured it was a good brand name. I was wrong. I also didn't use their bolt, as I used the bolt that was matched to my barrel, but boy did the NIB stain. And only after a few hundred rounds. Never saw that on my RTBA BCG. I ended up selling that BCG cheap. Like $50, just to get rid of it. A good NIB coating should clean up easily, like TWR said. I'd definitely try the Tool Craft NIB BCG, since you guys are giving it high praise. For the money, it's hard to say no...

I just wonder if the tolerances on the PSA nickel boron BCG are the same as a more expensive BCG?